


Accompanied

by Trixree



Category: One Piece
Genre: Angst, Getting Together, M/M, Nonbinary Character, Pining, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Queer Themes, Telepathic Porn, accidental telepathic bond aquisition, im gonna hurt Sanji a lot okay, im not sorry about it, oops my hand slipped and this happened
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:26:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22454137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trixree/pseuds/Trixree
Summary: Around ten in the morning, Nami signals that they’re approaching an island. At noon, the Thousand Sunny docks in a bay full of white sand and sunflowers with rusty yellow petals. At one, it’s safe to say all the Strawhats have scattered around the island on various errands or explorations. By two in the afternoon, everything changes."Luffy?" He speaks without speaking."Sanji?" Luffy answers without answering."What the fuck—", Zoro curses without cursing, and suddenly all three of them—all /one/ of them—is knocked flat on their ass on the ground.
Relationships: Monkey D. Luffy/Roronoa Zoro, Monkey D. Luffy/Roronoa Zoro/Vinsmoke Sanji, Monkey D. Luffy/Vinsmoke Sanji, Roronoa Zoro/Vinsmoke Sanji
Comments: 48
Kudos: 791





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm... not as sorry about this as I should be. I should be finishing the stories I do have, but alas... I am starting new ones. Forgive me

Around ten in the morning, Nami signals that they’re approaching an island. At noon, the  _ Thousand Sunny  _ docks in a bay full of white sand and sunflowers with rusty yellow petals. By one, all the Strawhats have scattered around the island on various errands or explorations. 

Luffy had darted off with a begrudgingly amused Zoro and Usopp towards the little seaside town in the distance. A little while later, Nami, Robin, and Chopper had followed. Brook had elected to stay behind on the ship with Franky, both of them unwilling to be interpreted as either monsters or deities (both of which have happened and both of which have been truly disastrous for everyone involved.) 

It’s a Summer island with beautiful weather and air that is fragrant with flowers and sea salt. Sanji sets off towards the town with just a grocery list and his cigarettes, feeling strangely content on the lovely little island. 

By two in the afternoon, everything changes. 

* * *

He stops by a small general store. Outside of the store, two children—what looks to be an older brother and a younger sister—are playing a game with sticks and stones in the dirt. The little girl wears white gloves up to her elbows. The door to the general store is propped open with a chair, perhaps for a parent to listen in on the two kids. 

Gently, Sanji raps his knuckles against the door and calls out a polite, “Hello?” 

“Come in! I’ll be with you in just one second!” A man’s voice calls out from somewhere in the store. 

Sanji is already mentally checking things off of his list as he examines the well-stocked shelves of the store. The shop owner, a middle aged man with a short beard and brown hair, emerges from the back room a few moments later. 

“Hi, what can do for you?” His voice is bright and cheerful, but not lacking its suspicions. 

“I’m hoping to restock on some groceries for my crew.” Sanji tries to keep his explanations simple on islands like these. It’s hard to tell whether or not the inhabitants will have some degree of “Pirate-Panic” as Nami has nicknamed it or “Completely-Valid-Self-Preserving-Fears-and-Reservations” as Usopp insists it be called. 

Sanji hands over his grocery list and the man nods after a moment. “All of the meat you’ll have to get from the Butcher next door. Everything else I can do for you here.” There’s a brief pause while the man seems to evaluate Sanji. “Pirates?” he says, quirking an eyebrow. 

“Ah, yes. Blackleg Sanji, at your service,” he smiles, forcing as much of a non-threatening tone as he can manage into his voice. 

He’d venture to say it works pretty well as the man offers him a small smile and moves out from behind the counter.

“Nice to meet you Blackleg,” the man says, holding out a hand. “My name’s Jon. You might have met Lynn and Will outside.” He hands Sanji a basket and starts to add items from his list into the cart and they start to move through the aisles. 

“They’re very well behaved. Are they yours?” Sanji finds himself making amiable small talk. As Jon lights up and delves into an animated explanation, he’s glad he made the effort. The man is personable enough and easy to talk to. 

“They’re my sister’s kids, but I’ve raised them since they were small. She’s in the marines,” Jon tells him, beaming with pride. “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna turn you or your crew in. My sister just wanted to see the world. I have no delusions about the kind of justice the World Government has seen fit to deal out the past few years, kid. I know and I know that my sister knows that  _ that  _ ain’t justice.”

Jon thunks a heavy bag of flour into Sanji’s arms to punctuate his statement. 

“They’re good kids, really good. Will is whip-smart and Lynn has this incredible sense for people. They’re about as well behaved as kids their age get, too. They’re twins—Will is older by a few minutes and lets everyone know it,” Jon chuckles. 

“They sound great,” Sanji comments, smiling. He’s always liked kids. Where other people tend to find them disagreeable and loud and messy, Sanji can’t help but find them amusing and endlessly interesting with their dreams that are just starting to emerge. Almost in spite of his own childhood, Sanji enjoys children. 

The unmistakable sound of Luffy’s laughter filters into the shop from outside. Glancing out the window, Sanji sees that Usopp, Zoro, and Luffy have met the two kids and the girl, Lynn, is now balanced on Zoro’s shoulders while the boy, Will, is sitting on Luffy’s. Usopp appears to be narrating some grand adventure while Luffy and Zoro rush around to the command of the kids on their shoulders. 

Sanji turns and finds Jon also watching. 

“Are they members of your crew?” 

“Yes. The tall one is our swordsman.” He gestures to Usopp. “Our sniper.” He nods towards Luffy. “Our captain.” 

“You all are young for a crew in the New World,” Jon says. 

Sanji shrugs. Maybe they are. _It sure doesn't feel like we're very young,_ Sanji thinks.

After the grocery shopping is done, Jon and Sanji both exit the store and watch with fond amusement while the kids play with Luffy, Zoro, and Usopp.  Luffy lights up like the sun as soon as he sees him. He waves one rubbery hand erratically in the air. “ _ Oi!  _ Sanji! Come meet Lynn and Pill!” 

The little boy sitting on Luffy’s shoulders reaches under the straw-hat to pull at Luffy’s dark hair and then he kicks him in the shoulder with his foot for good effort. “I told you, my name is  _ Will!”  _ he gripes. 

Luffy laughs, unconcerned, and gently pats Will’s ankle. “Sorry, sorry, Bill.” 

“ _ Will!”  _ the little boy shrieks. Nonetheless, Will shakes Sanji’s hand like a young gentleman as soon as he stops screaming at Luffy. 

“Hello!” the little girl says, waving from where she’s comfortably seated on Zoro’s shoulders. 

Jon, still standing over by the entrance to the shop, goes still. “ _ Lynn,”  _ he starts, his voice a clear warning. Sanji is close enough to Zoro and Luffy to see their eyes narrow in confusion. “Where are your gloves?” 

In the next instant, too quick to comprehend, there is a loud, startling sound, almost like an explosion. Sanji hears Usopp shriek and on instinct, Sanji grabs Luffy and Zoro each and pulls them in, using his own body as a shield for them and the kids they are holding. Sanji thinks he hears the little boy shout, “ _ Lynn!”  _ and Jon cry out in wordless surprise. 

There’s a small hand on Sanji’s face and then— 

Everything goes dark with a sharp burst of pain. 

* * *

Sanji wakes to the muffled but unmistakable sound of chatter, laughter, and glasses and dishes clinking together. He’s slow to come to—slow to register what’s happening around him. His face is pressed against something smooth and cold— _ a bar-top— _ and his ears are filled with familiar— _ and foreign— _ sounds of people he knows— _ people he doesn’t know— _ laughing and talking among themselves. 

_ He  _ opens his eyes. 

_ No, not he,  _ Sanji thinks, feeling sluggish and disoriented,  _ me.  _

There’s a simple wooden box on the counter in front of him. He opens it, curious, and finds a purple fruit inside. He doesn’t know what it is— _ I don’t know what it is—Wait, of course I know, that’s— _ but he’s hungry and it looks edible so he eats it. 

“Gross,” he— _ the boy— _ says, and Sanji is  _ reeling.  _ He knows that voice. 

_ Luffy.  _

In a breathless, dizzying rush of light and sound and air, Sanji— _ Luffy— _ is suddenly somewhere else entirely, some other  _ time,  _ too, Sanji can feel it. It’s like he’s seeing the world through Luffy’s eyes— _ a young Luffy— _ living moments that Luffy had lived--unable to speak, or to move on his own volition-- 

He’s in the water, now,  _ in the ocean,  _ and he’s  _ drowning _ —fuck—he’s _ —I’m—we— _ are going to  _ drown—  _

The panic is cloudy and hard to breathe or blink or see through but suddenly there’s strong arms pulling him out of the water, hauling him to the surface. With a desperate gasp for air, he’s crushed to a strong, broad chest by a single arm and there’s a  _ terrible,  _ ear-splitting  _ roar—  _

There is blood in the water. There is blood  _ everywhere.  _

The sound is ripped out of his— _ Luffy’s _ —throat in a gut-wrenching, terrified, agonized scream of  _ “SHANKS!”  _ and it’s not just Luffy’s voice, it’s  _ Sanji’s  _ voice and someone else’s too— 

But before he can linger in the memory long enough to be oriented, to  _ understand,  _ he’s somewhere else entirely. 

* * *

He is sitting on the front steps of what he knows to be an orphanage. The keeper of the boys house, an angry, older man with a large gut and a balding head, says that if they are here, they must work. All orphans of this land are given to an orphanage just like this and put to work by the house’s keeper until they are old enough to find work of their own. 

Contemplative and angry, he looks up at the sign on the house.  _ Roronoa House _ , it says, as this is the name given to the orphans of this city. 

Zoro is small and useless and doesn’t want to work under this fat, lazy, angry bastard, so he is going to go wherever he pleases and do something that he  _ wants  _ to do. Not something he’s told to do. 

So he— _ Zoro—Sanji—both—more than both— _ goes. 

They— _ Sanji knows there is someone else here besides him and a young Zoro. He can feel them in the back of his mind, a steady presence that feels like salty sea-spray, like watching the sun rise over the ocean, like the steam that rises off of Luffy in gear second, and they are there, too— _ and Sanji reaches out with this new awareness, floundering but desperate for answers, and brushes up against that presence until— 

_ Luffy?  _ He speaks without speaking. 

_ Sanji?  _ Luffy answers without answering. 

_ What the fuck— _ Zoro curses without cursing, and suddenly all three of them—all  _ one  _ of them—is knocked flat on their ass on the ground. 

A girl with short, dark hair and a grim expression stands over them. Sanji knows her name without knowing how he knows or why he knows.  _ Kuina. _ Kuina and Zoro shout at each other—arguing over what it is to be a swordsman in this world--to be a woman in this world--and with every word that the Zoro of the past shouts, the weight of  _ Zoro now  _ reverberates behind it. 

_ Please,  _ and the voice not-spoken feels like agony, feels like impossible, horrible sorrow,  _ not again.  _

The girl rushes off to get a real sword. She does not come back. 

This is grief. 

* * *

In a vertigo-inducing, dizzying blink of light and heat and the scent of sun-worn straw, Luffy-Sanji-Zoro are standing in front of Red Haired Shanks, making a promise to return something beloved, to meet the man that lost an  _ arm  _ for them at the very top of the world. 

As Shanks sails away, Luffy is  _ lonely.  _

The loneliness feels cold and empty and raw where it brushes against Sanji’s consciousness. 

* * *

This time he knows where they are instantly. 

The ground is stone and it is cold and smells like rot and mold and damp. Rats squeak and shuffle around in the corner. The weight on his shoulders is  _ impossible to bear.  _

Sanji is sobbing, choking on tears and snot that he can’t brush away because of the mask over his face—blubbering like the weak and silly thing his siblings know he is. He wants his  _ mom  _ but she’s not  _ coming because she’s dead _ — 

_ No one is coming because they want him dead—  _

And echoes of the useless, weak, and unwanted thing that he is swirl around in his head like ice, like a chill to the bone, and he cries and cries and cries and can’t breathe through the sorrow, the horror, the weight of the iron on his shoulders. 

Sanji—Luffy—Zoro slaps their small, fragile hands on the helmet and  _ screams.  _

* * *

Kuina dies and Zoro made her a promise so he trains until he can’t feel his limbs when he falls asleep at night. The other boys in the dojo talk about him. They talk about how foolish and stupid he is. He doesn’t care. This isn’t for them. This is for him and Kuina. 

He trains. 

Sanji feels muscles that aren't his burn with exertion. 

* * *

The jungle is hard to traverse and Ace keeps disappearing. Luffy falls into a ravine chasing after him and he gets back up. Luffy gets chased by tigers and he gets back up. Luffy gets bit by alligators and he gets back up. 

_ I don’t want to be alone,  _ Luffy is desperate with it. Determined.  _ I don’t want you to be alone either,  _ he thinks, watching Ace disappear into the thick canopy of foliage above as he struggles to keep up—pushing himself to just  _ be faster.  _

With feet that are not his, Sanji runs after a brother he never had through a jungle that he's never been to.

* * *

His sister lets him go and Sanji runs like he never has before, taking off for the cruise ship docked on the beach. He will live. He will get away from his family, he will escape them, and he will live how he wants to. 

Some part of him, nervous and scared but finally free, sings with the possibilities and a presence— _ two— _ are there as witness. Luffy brushes against his adult consciousness with sunshine warmth and a furious but determined gentleness. Someone else is there, too. He feels like the charged rain of a storm, the clash of metal against metal, the taste of blood and a slow, lazy nap on the deck of a ship.  _ Zoro.  _

_ Run, little cook,  _ Zoro says. 

* * *

The trauma of the jungle and all the battles they face is tempered by the joy, freedom, and love of the oath that grows between the brothers. Sabo presses all sorts of casual, gentle touches to Luffy. Ace does, too. It no longer feels like such a lonely existence. They fight together, they train together, and Luffy never wins, but it doesn’t quite matter because he loves them and he knows he will catch up to them someday. 

Sanji, experimentally, reaches out again and brushes up against what he knows to be  _ Zoro,  _ also watching with an exceptional degree of fondness. Sanji prods at the extension of himself that feels like Luffy and is delighted when it responds to his gentle touch. 

_ Sanji,  _ Luffy sighs without sighing, content and mourning at the same time. 

_ What’s about to happen?  _ Sanji asks without asking, feeling the bitter longing Luffy has watching his younger self and his brothers tumble around together in the dirt as they play pirates. 

In lieu of an answer, Luffy’s sorrow swallows them like a tidal wave. 

* * *

Taken down by a swift wave, Sanji feels himself sink in the water. It’s so dark and so loud as the two ships collide and break apart under the deadly swell of the waves. Just as a hand grabs him, he loses consciousness. 

Waking up is not a blessing. Sanji will remember the way the hot, sun-warmed stone of the rock burns against his skin like this until he dies. He is thirsty. He is hungry. 

_ This is not hunger, not yet.  _

There is Zeff and there is the bag that Sanji knows is  _ not  _ full of food for the older man and he feels his younger self—all of his anger and confusion and fear—and he stares hard at Zeff’s shoulders and thinks  _ please, please don’t.  _ _ Not for me, I'm not worth this, you shitty old geezer!  _

But his younger self walks away. 

* * *

Fire and starvation live in tandem. In the raging inferno of the grey terminal, Luffy and Ace fight for their lives. On the unforgiving surface of the rock, Sanji starves and bakes under the glare of the sun. 

Zoro watches, his steel and iron presence thrumming like a live wire. It is the only thing that tethers Sanji as he remembers, with painstaking clarity, the pain, the thirst, and the hunger.  Sanji is horrified and disgusted watching— _ feeling and reliving, too— _ his childhood self turn to nothing but skin and bone, emaciated and sickly. Luffy’s rage is a quiet but enormous thing in his mind. Zoro is steady throughout. They say nothing until the day comes that Sanji tries to kill Zeff. 

Ashamed and grieving all over again, Sanji tries as hard as he can to block out what is happening, what he is about to learn of the lengths of this man’s sacrifice for him—but _he can’t block it out,_ can’t snuff out this memory, and Zoro and Luffy’s reactions strike him like lightning. 

Smoke clings heavy and unbearable to Luffy’s lungs. He must leave Ace behind. He cannot fight this battle. He’s too weak. Wreathed in fire, Ace vows to come back. Luffy sobs as he’s carried away. Sanji tries to sob on the rock, but finds he is too dehydrated to produce tears. Zoro is steady in both of them. 

* * *

Zoro is fourteen and a bounty hunter. He gets his ears pierced in a shady parlor. He uses his first ever reward money from his first ever capture to do it. 

He wants something just for himself. (He wonders if Kuina would approve.)

* * *

Ace sets sail and Luffy, again, is alone. The ghost of Sabo follows him everywhere. He pretends that this is enough. 

* * *

Sanji knows where they are. They are in the storage room of the Baratie’s kitchen in its earliest days. A young, talented shiphand of Sanji’s age has been assisting with the construction. 

His smile is the same as Sanji remembers it—boyish with dimples and freckles and eyelashes so long that he thinks they belong on a girl. The boy is muscular for someone so young because of his apprenticeship on construction projects like this one. His skin is a dark tan from his work in the sun. (He is Sanji's first love.) 

Immediately, Sanji knows what this memory is. 

_ No, no, no, no,  _ his panic rises hot and cloying. 

_ What?  _ Zoro’s concern (and oddly enough, something like protectiveness) rises in tandem to Sanji’s growing panic. 

_ Sanji?  _ Luffy’s own brand of concern surges alongside it. 

_Please, please, please, don’t look, don’t watch, you’ll never—you can’t—_ Sanji can’t let them know, _can’t let them see this._ Once they see it, his deepest, darkest shame, they will _never_ look at him the same again, they will _never_ consider him nakama again their disgust will be too much to bare, he will not survive it— 

_ Sanji, it’s okay,  _ Luffy tries to soothe just as a younger, teenage Sanji leans in towards the shiphand boy for his very first kiss. 

_ Oh,  _ Zoro breathes in surprise. 

Sanji could _cry_ for how betrayed he feels by his own mind. 

The two presences of Luffy and Zoro seem to bracket him on either side, comforting.  _ Accepting.  _ It leaves Sanji feeling dizzy and sick with himself. 

_ You’re nakama,  _ Luffy whispers without whispering. His conviction is fierce. 

_ Don’t be stupid,  _ Zoro tells him without talking, oddly gentle. 

The boy pushes him away and calls him disgusting, nasty things. Alone in the storage room, a teenage Sanji sobs.

He loves this boy and it is _wrong._ He stamps the feeling deep, deep down and cleans himself up before slipping out of the room, vowing _never again._

* * *

There are more memories—so many more memories. Lifetimes, in fact. They each relive the joy of finding each other, of finding the crew. Important battles and reunions and victories and loses whip through them with a painful, dizzying, and brutal speed. 

Mihawk slices Zoro in half and it cuts to the core of all of them. Zoro’s conviction tastes like fire itself. 

Sanji is struck by lightning in Skypiea and the rush of it races through them all like an impossible force. 

Luffy goes gear second. Sanji does not have words to describe the feeling of veins compressing to super-heat blood. 

Robin comes back to them. There’s pain and power and adrenaline and a growing sense of family. They re-watch each of these moments through each others’ eyes with each other's odd, intangible presences in their heads. Then— 

* * *

Saobody is so much more painful the second time around.

They watch through Luffy’s eyes. Once everyone is gone… Luffy falls  _ apart.  _

Sanji has never heard anyone scream like that. Each time Luffy bashes his head against the ground, each violent, frenzied attempt to mitigate some of the pain and frustration of losing them all, _of being so weak he couldn't save any of them,_ the pain of it hits Sanji harder than he thought anything ever could. Luffy punches himself and the ground. He claws at his own skin and the dirt and  _ screams. _

Sanji didn’t think Luffy was capable of panic. He never imagined this—the violence of this moment. The agony of it. It's almost too much to bear, even through three of them. Sanji feels _this--_ this intangible, inexplicable connection between the three of them-- begin to tatter and fray under the violence and panic of Luffy's loss. And then— 

* * *

_ And then _ — 

Sanji opens his eyes. 

He’s collapsed into a heap on the ground where he had been standing moments (or perhaps _years)_ before— _ before— _ (he doesn’t have words that can describe that experience. He simply doesn't have words for the pain of it, for the horror of getting flayed open, getting examined so thoroughly... He can't begin to describe what it was to know  _ Zoro and Luffy  _ of all people so intimately … Simply, there are no words). 

It takes an age to lift his head. Collapsed similarly on either side of him are Luffy and Zoro. All three of them are panting like they’ve run a marathon. Luffy looks at him first, rolling his head on the ground to face him so that he doesn't have to lift it. His eyes are so wide. It must mirror what Sanji himself looks like, he thinks. Steady shock ripples through his suddenly impossibly sore body. His head  _ hurts.  _

An arm in Sanji’s hand twitches. He’s still gripping them—Zoro by the bicep, Luffy by the shoulder—exactly as he had when he had reached out to them to protect from whatever had come. It’s like they just… colapsed on the spot. 

_ God  _ his head fucking  _ hurts.  _

_ Me too,  _ Luffy says, to which Zoro just groans in assent. 

“Lynn! Will? Mr. Blackleg-san!” 

“ Oh shit, oh balls, oh shit _ ,”  _ Usopp is chanting nervously. 

“I—I’m—I’m sorry,” a little girl is hiccuping out in between sobs. 

Sanji can’t process  _ any of it.  _ He can’t make heads or tails of the words. All of him is devoted to one, slowly dawning horror… 

_...Luffy?  _ He says without speaking.

_ Oh,  _ Luffy replies without replying. His mouth is still and his eyes are wide and baffled as he says without speaking—as he says from within Sanji's mind _ —Am I in your head? _

_ No,  _ a different voice says entirely.  _ I think you both are in mine,  _ Zoro whispers without whispering. 

_ Sanji, your heart is beating so loud—wow, Zoro! I can feel your headache! And Sanji’s, too! This is so cool!  _ Luffy is sitting up now, touching his own head curiously and smiling as he continues an odd stream-of-consciousness chatter that is practically bursting with excitement and curiosity. 

_ No— _ Sanji thinks, trying hard to swallow his anxiety. 

“I’m so  _ sorry,”  _ the little girl sobs. The shopkeep sweeps her into his arms. Her brother looks equally as alarmed--equally as guilty.

“Why are you sorry?” Sanji asks, out-loud, and he tries desperately to ignore how  _ odd  _ it feels to be able to  _ hear  _ Luffy’s excited babble and  _ feel  _ Zoro’s growing sense of dread in his head. 

The little girl scrunches up her tear-stained face and stares down helplessly at her hands. Then, she wails, “I didn’t mean to use my powers on you!”   
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sanji does not want to talk to Zoro. Or think about Zoro. He does not want to deal with Zoro. Of all the people in the world to end up accidentally (and permanently, a traitorous little voice in his head sneers at him) telepathically linked with, it had to be Zoro.
> 
> I can fucking hear you, Cook. 
> 
> Sanji groans and scrubs his hands roughly across his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so. I've altered the tags a bit. ApPaREnTlY I'm incapable of writing Sanji and not focusing on queer themes. So. (Also, I may or may not have been reading a lot of Dean Spade. Seriously fucking life-altering. I highly suggest anything out of "Normal Life")

“Lynn ate the Share-Share fruit when she was five years old,” Jon explains. Lynn is quiet and shaking in his lap, holding her uncle’s hand like it's a life-line and saying nothing. “It tethers people together when she touches them with her bare skin. When your sniper dropped that explosive—”

Usopp flinches and wrings his hands together nervously. He had rushed to explain what had caused the noise that startled them all so badly as soon as the chaos had cleared and Jon had managed to soothe his daughter.  Zoro had promptly smacked Usopp upside the head. 

_ Fucking idiot, dropping his fucking fireworks,  _ Sanji thinks bitterly. (Perhaps belatedly, it occurs to Sanji that he might be in shock. He’s caught between two equally overwhelming emotions—rage and fear—and his mind can’t seem to settle on one.) 

_ Stupid asshole,  _ Zoro agrees. 

It occurs to Sanji (again, with noticeable delay) that Zoro did not say that out-loud. The words travel along the connection between them that runs formless through Sanji’s mind. Brushing against the limits of his consciousness, he feels the storm-charged steel and unfathomable protectiveness of Zoro and the sea-salt sun-warm energy and excitement that is Luffy thrum in tandem. 

_ Don’t think anything incriminating,  _ Sanji tells himself.  _ Just don’t think at all.  _

The presence that is Luffy in his mind is confused. Sanji can feel it like any of his own emotions, but with that undeniable vibrancy of Luffy. It’s like a flavor, except it is not a taste at all. Luffy must have heard him say that— _ think  _ that. He's smiling at the thought of flavor and food. 

Absently, Sanji rubs at an ache that is forming in his chest. He’s breathing fast and uneven, burning far too quickly through the third  cigarette he's lit since regaining consciousness. 

Zoro’s presence— _ Marimo flavor,  _ Sanji thinks deliriously—surges with that particular  _ thing  _ that Sanji now recognizes as Zoro’s own brand of protectiveness for the people he counts as  _ his.  _

Zoro can  _ feel  _ his panic—which means  _ Luffy  _ can feel his panic, too—and Sanji wants to curl up and  _ die,  _ wants to fucking  _ disappear  _ so he doesn’t have to  _ deal with any of this—  _

Suddenly, Zoro surges up and out of his chair. 

Jon had ushered them into the general store only after sending Will to retrieve Chopper under the urgent and frantic request of Usopp, who was nearly incoherent with worry. They’d all settled in the small back office. Jon is sitting on a small couch with his niece cradled in his lap while Usopp hovers anxiously in the corner. Sanji is sitting perched on the edge of a desk like a gargoyle, chain-smoking as if it  _ can solve any of his problems. _ Zoro and Luffy have taken the two wooden chairs by the door. 

Zoro pushes into Sanji’s space and Sanji wants to  _ hit him  _ and  _ hide from him  _ simultaneously. With a soundless snarl, Sanji lashes out with his foot, intending to strike Zoro in the gut. Whether or not Zoro anticipated this or  _ felt  _ Sanji’s intent doesn’t matter—either way, he catches Sanji by the ankle and stops the half-hearted attack.

Zoro’s hand is hot like an open flame where it touches the bare skin of Sanji’s ankle. 

Shame laces through Sanji like lightning and he wrenches his foot out of Zoro’s grasp. 

In the chair by the door, Luffy’s eyes narrow. 

“Need air,” Sanji mumbles, more for Jon and Lynn’s benefit than anyone else’s, before slipping—running—out of the door. 

* * *

Outside the general store, braced against the wall and taking the first, soothing drag of his fourth cigarette, Sanji tries to get his  _ shit together.  _

It is… surprisingly hard given his constant awareness of two other people attached to his mind.  _ The Share-Share fruit,  _ he thinks bitterly. There’s some shit he would have rather kept to himself. With a fresh new wave of anxiety, Sanji wonders if the memory-sharing had stopped after that awful day in Saobody, or if the others had seen  _ beyond  _ that, too.

(Sanji read about Marineford in the newspaper. Sanji met Ace back in Alabasta. Not only that, but Sanji has now lived through Luffy’s love for his brothers--he's seen their childhood--has basically _experienced it himself._ And Luffy’s lost both of them. He honestly doesn’t think he could bare to witness to Ace's death _.  _ Iva-san had said it was “rougher than rough”, that it was “the hardest thing there can be” and Sanji doesn’t want to fathom what had made Iva-san so pale and withdrawn.)

Thinking of Iva-san and their many wisdoms leaves Sanji thinking, raw and exposed, about his time in the Kamabaka Kingdom. He’d rather  _ die  _ than let  _ anyone  _ see that. Especially not  _ Zoro.  _ Especially not his  _ captain.  _

They’ve already seen enough of his depravity as it is. 

“Hey,” a young voice calls, tentative. 

It’s Will, standing at the mouth of the little alley way Sanji’s hid himself in. 

“Hi,” Sanji replies. He does his best to direct the smoke away from the kid. Usually, he wouldn’t smoke around children at all. But. Desperate times and all. 

“Are you okay?” the boy asks. 

Sanji knows he’s shaking. He makes himself stop. “Yeah,” he says. 

Will shrugs. “It’s okay if you wanna’ lie. But I know you’re lyin’,” the boy says. 

“I’m not,” Sanji replies childishly. 

“When Lynn and I linked up, it was awful.” 

Sanji startles. “You—?” 

“I was with her when she ate the fruit. We do everythin’ together,” he raps on his temple with his knuckles. “It hurt a lot, the first day. Headaches ‘n stuff.” Will looks around, almost to make sure that no one else is out here listening. “‘S Scary, too.” 

“How long does this last?” he asks the kid. His throat feels impossibly dry and rough around the words. 

Sanji didn’t know that a child could look  _ pitying  _ until this precise moment. Will shakes his head in a wordless "no". 

“‘S permanent,” he says. It sounds like the bang of a gavel, knocking to deliver a death-sentence. 

_ They will know all of you,  _ Sanji realizes with an ever growing sense of acute horror. 

“Sanji?” Chopper's voice calls out. 

Will rocks back and forth on his heels. “I think your doctor wants to see you,” he comments. 

“Maybe I don’t want to see him right now,” Sanji fires back, feeling strung out and exhausted and  _ defeated _ . 

“Can’t really hide from them like this,” Will says, smiling like a tiny little devil. Sanji doesn’t have a chance to puzzle out what he means until the  _ presence  _ of Luffy grows somehow  _ more present  _ in his mind and then Luffy himself strides into the alley, smiling. 

“So cool,” his captain murmurs in wonder. “Sanji! I can find you by following the—” Luffy gestures incomprehensibly at his head. 

Sanji sucks down tobacco as if it could save him from this situation. “ _ Fuck.”  _

* * *

Robin hums as she pages through the devil-fruit manual. They’re finally back on the Sunny, and while the familiar atmosphere eases some of the ever growing tension and dread building inside of him, Sanji still feels horribly out of his depth. He chops carrots probably more roughly than they deserve to be chopped. 

Clustered around the dining room table are most of the crew—Robin and Nami are reading over a book of devil-fruits while Brook and Franky stand vigilant and attentive to the ladies’ brainstorming. Chopper had quickly stolen Zoro and Luffy away to the infirmary for testing—a fate that Sanji had escaped only by claiming that there were dinner preparations to be made, regardless of any sudden telepathic connections. 

(At the back of his mind, if he seeks it out, Sanji can feel Zoro’s irritation at being poked and prodded by the nervous little doctor.) 

“What is it?” Ussop prompts, chewing at his nails and leaning forward to try and get a glimpse at the book. 

“By all accounts, it appears the effect of the fruit is permanent and irreversible,” she calmly explains. Nami gives Sanji a very sympathetic look. It looks beautiful on her, he must admit, but he’d really rather not think about the reality of this situation at all. 

He’s not gonna take this lying down. 

His mind is  _ his own,  _ dammit. 

_ Sanji?  _ Luffy’s voice prods at his awareness and the feeling of it sends goosebumps racing down his arms. With a surprised jolt, he drops a couple of carrot slices on the floor. 

_ Sanji, Sanji, Sanji!  _

Sanji tips his head back and glares at the ceiling.  _ Fuck,  _ his head hurts. 

_ What,  _ he thinks at Luffy in what he hopes is a scathing tone. 

_ So you can hear me! Chopper wanted to test what we can do! Like, how far we can talk and stuff.  _

Having spoken back and forth, the connection between them feels like it has opened up. Only moments before, feelings like Zoro’s irritation and Luffy’s curiosity were low on Sanji’s radar—a barely there awareness that he could feel but mostly ignore. Now, Luffy having spoken and Sanji having responded, the connection feels less tenuous and more like an open door between the two of them. Cautiously, Sanji imagines himself stepping through it. 

_ Luffy is curious but bored sitting in the infirmary. He’s worried about Zoro, as fiercely independent as he is, but he’s worried about Sanji most of all. He’s not nervous about how much of his life they’ve seen, only about how they might feel his pain in battle in the future—  _

Luffy registers that he’s there—in his mind in a much more intimate way—and, after a flash of _wait-what-woah-surprise-alarm-surprise,_ Luffy pushes .

Sanji is still staring at the ceiling and the kitchen has gone silent, watching him. He’s sweating buckets and his head is absolutely throbbing. The connection to Luffy is quieter, now. Dull. Like, after Luffy pushed him out and closed the door, even those vague unconscious impressions he can feel of the other man are muffled. (Not gone, but muffled.)

_ Oi, cook. _

It’s Zoro. 

Sanji does not want to talk to Zoro. Or think at Zoro. He does not want to  _ deal  _ with Zoro. Of all the people in the world to end up accidentally (and permanently, a traitorous little voice in his head sneers at him) telepathically linked with, it had to be _Zoro._

_ I can fucking hear you, Cook.  _

Sanji groans and scrubs his hands roughly across his face.

“Sanji-bro? You okay?” Franky asks. 

_ God, who woulda’ thought you’re such a mother hen,  _ Sanji snipes at Zoro. He feels raw. Exposed. Like he’s on the edge of something awful. There's some terrible, nightmarish melt-down waiting for him and he can’t do anything to stave off his collapse. 

_ You’re like a fucking faucet with all of these feelings and shit. It’s giving me a headache.  _

“Well your head is fucking  _ empty  _ you stupid, brainless Marimo!” Sanji shouts. 

After a silent moment,  _ You said that out-loud, dipshit.  _

“Yeah, I fucking  _ got that!”  _ he cries, throwing his hands up in defeat. 

“Cook-san,” Robin begins, standing from the table. Her voice is calm, like she’s approaching a wild animal. Sanji  _ hates it.  _ Hates that she’s  _ looking at him like that.  _ “Let me take you to see Doctor-san, now.”

Sanji swallows hard. 

* * *

Chopper takes one look at him—shaking minutely, head pounding with an unbearable migraine, chain-smoking a whole new pack of cigarettes, unreasonably sweaty and clearly exhausted—and sedates him. Before Sanji even has time to protest, Chopper has injected him with  _ something  _ and ushered him onto the single infirmary bed. 

“I’m unsure as to why you’re experiencing such adverse side effects, Sanji,” Chopper murmurs to himself while he prepares an IV. “Physically, Zoro and Luffy seem to be fine, their minor headaches aside.”

Dazed, Sanji wonders where those two idiots are, now. The infirmary is empty save for him, Chopper, and the lovely Robin who stands as a silent sentry by the door. 

As he wonders, his mind turns to the ever-present hum of Zoro and Luffy in his head. Rising like an answer to his unvoiced question, the respective energies of the two pull him in different directions—one towards the crow’s nest, the other towards the figure-head—and the knowledge of where they are somehow eases the tightness in Sanji’s chest. Or maybe that’s the drugs. 

Chopper sets Sanji up on an IV with medication to help subdue his migraine. The needle slides into the crook of his arm like butter. 

Sanji lets his head drop onto the pillow. 

Privately, he thinks that Zoro and Luffy got out fine because those two have always had some kind of freaky connection that surpassed all kinds of logic. They’ve always understood each other without speaking, always moved with the awareness of where the other is, always handled each other as if it was as easy as handling themselves. Sanji— 

Sanji wasn’t  _ built for this. _

He’s not built for the brotherhood Luffy seeks—for the kind of love Luffy gives freely. (He saw in those memories, in Luffy’s pursuit of Ace, in his affection for his crew, in his open and limitless kindness to the world.) He’s certainly not built for the bullheaded loyalty of Zoro—a man that would go to the ends of the world to make sure a girl long dead could still have her dream fulfilled, a man that would swear loyalty to a stupid kid in a strawhat that smiled so bright that he couldn’t refuse him, a man that would cut off his own feet to prove a point). 

Getting exposed to the two of them like this reminds Sanji of that man of myth with wings of wax who flew too close to the sun. 

“I’m too close,” Sanji murmurs, feeling the sedative start to kick in. His eyes are impossibly heavy. He closes them. 

“Rest, Sanji-san,” Robin says. 

* * *

When he wakes up, it is dark outside and Luffy and Zoro are the only other people in the infirmary. They’re having a very loud argument in their heads. Sanji can hear it before he even opens his eyes. 

_ I would have never asked that of you.  _ There’s pain evident in Luffy’s voice.  _ From either of you.  _

_ It was freely given.  _ Zoro sounds stubborn and unaffected. 

_ You could have died,  _ Luffy's voice cuts through his mind like the crack of a whip.  _ Both of you were ready to die. To give up your dreams. I felt that.  _

Sanji turns his head ever so slightly on the pillow. Luffy’s fists are clenched at his sides and his shoulders shake minutely. Zoro stands firm in front of him, arms crossed.

_ You’re our Captain,  _ Zoro says, the truth of it loud and clear as a bell. 

Suddenly, it occurs to Sanji— _ Thriller Bark. Luffy saw.  _

All at once Zoro and Luffy turn to face him, startled by his sudden internal realization. 

“You’re awake!” Luffy exclaims. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Sanji sits up, noticing that the IV has already been disconnected. He must have been asleep for a while. “How late is it?” He blinks, registering truly how dark it is outside. “Wait, who made dinner?” 

“The girls,” Zoro says. 

“It wasn’t as good as Sanji’s food,” Luffy whines. 

Sanji can’t help the way something inside of him flushes pleased at that. No matter how many times Luffy says his food is the best—even though he  _ knows  _ that Luffy would eat  _ dirt  _ if he was hungry enough—it always makes him feel  _ good _ . 

Curiously, Sanji notices that Luffy is starting to snicker a little and that Zoro is smirking, just a little. 

Embarrassment is a terrible thing. Sanji buries his (no doubt blushing) face in his hands and  _ groans.  _

Luffy snickers, “Sanji is shy!” 

“ _ Shut up,”  _ Sanji groans. 

“No use hiding it now, Cook,” Zoro taunts. “You’re just as bad as Chopper about compliments, aren’t you?” 

“S-shut  _ up!”  _ Sanji shouts.

Sanji feels Luffy prod carefully around the edges of his mind. Oddly enough, the feeling isn’t as disconcerting as it probably should be. With a suspiciously mischievous grin, Luffy starts to shuffle forward towards Sanji, still half-reclined on the infirmary bed. 

“What,” Sanji cautions, looking frantically to Zoro for help. Luffy climbs into the bed, pressing insistently into Sanji’s side, winding his rubber arms around and around Sanji’s torso. Zoro just shrugs. 

_ You know how he is,  _ Zoro supplies less-than-helpfully inside Sanji’s mind.

“ _ H-hey!”  _

Luffy snickers. “If Sanji wanted hugs, too, all he had to do was say so,” he says, wrestling Sanji down onto the bed and…  _ snuggling  _ into his side. 

Under the warm affection that Luffy has for him, there’s an undercurrent of nervousness, buried. Tentative, Sanji prods at that feeling. In return— 

_ You don’t feel well. Let me help. I can tell this helps you.  _

Sanji flushes bright red from the neck up. He looks helplessly at Zoro, who… is  _ also  _ blushing. Zoro stares with determination at the floor, glaring, like he’s mad at his body for betraying him in this. 

Meanwhile, Luffy has got him flat on the bed and is half on-top of Sanji, gripping tight and giving small peals of laughter into Sanji’s shoulder. 

And the thing is, Luffy is  _ right.  _ Somehow the contact  _ does help.  _ It surprisingly goes a really long way toward making Sanji feel relaxed. (He still wants a fucking cigarette, though.) 

Sanji doesn’t often get to do this with the crew, save the notable exception of Chopper. He’s too enamored with the women to ever think of touching them in a way they wouldn’t approve of. With the men… Well, Sanji’s not  _ like that.  _ (Not anymore.) It's been awhile since he touched someone outside of a fight, is all. It's not like he _needs_ this. 

_ You like this,  _ Luffy supplies, quiet and observant. Sanji bites his tongue to keep from saying something ridiculous. 

He  _ does  _ like it and he  _ doesn’t want to  _ like it _.  _ Real men shouldn’t need to—to…  _ snuggle  _ with their nakama. It’s fucking absurd. Where he would usually posture and fight and scream his way out of this to avoid the truth of it—the truth that he really, really wants this (wants to hold someone and  _ be  _ held so badly)—now he  _ can’t  _ because Luffy is already  _ there,  _ pushing into all of those hidden personal spaces with the force of a wrecking ball. 

The best he can give is another half-hearted, “Hey—” of protest and it falls on deaf ears. 

Luffy smells like the sea and like standing in the sun for too long. He smells like gunpowder from playing with Usopp and like a long nap in the grass. Underneath all of it, he smells warm and undeniably like a  _ man.  _

Shame twists uncomfortable cramps and knots underneath Sanji’s skin. Immediately, Luffy’s presence surges in his mind. 

_ Stay.  _ Luffy tells him, sounding as firm as one can without actually speaking out loud (which is surprisingly firm). 

A protest rises and dies on his tongue. Across the infirmary, Zoro sets down his swords and approaches the bed cautiously. Luffy must be saying something to him, too. Concentrating, Sanji finds that he can almost “tune in” and catch what they’re saying, not just what Luffy is pushing directly at him. 

(He imagines opening a door in his mind. As if it’s just a conversation from another room, Luffy and Zoro’s voices start to filter in.)

_ C’mon, Zoro.  _

_ Shut up and move over.  _

A wave of _ affection-fondness-humor-worry-longing-nerves  _ rushes in through the connection, overwhelming and  _ too much.  _ Sanji closes the door and opens his eyes (when had he closed them?) to see Zoro awkwardly attempting to arrange himself on the bed somehow. The connection is quieted. The feelings that aren’t his (mostly not his) pass. 

It ends up that Sanji is trapped on his back with Luffy clinging to him like a koala and Zoro sitting awkwardly at Luffy’s side, propped up against the wall. 

_ Go to sleep, shitty cook.  _

_ I'm not shitty, you shitty bastard.  _

He drops back off into sleep soon after. 

* * *

_ She went by Laney.  _

_ She was one of the New-Kama, and Sanji had snapped at her, thinking she was just another crossdresser angling to get him in a dress. She had rolled her eyes at him.  _

_ “I thought this place was supposed to be better than that,” Laney said. There was disappointment evident in her voice, but an element of boredom, too. Like she had expected a less-than-friendly reception all along. “I knew there wasn’t such a thing as Queer Fairy-Tale Land. Assholes like you are everywhere.”  _

_ Sanji spluttered, indignant. “I’m not the asshole here—you all have been trying to force me into a dress all night!”  _

_ “‘You all’,” she had parroted, derisive. “I haven’t forced you into fuck-all, buddy.”  _

_ “Real ladies don’t talk like that,” Sanji had bitten out, frustrated and angry and desperately upset with the news of Luffy and the war. Many of his nails were still bleeding from the nervous way he had been picking and biting at them. Zeff had tried to break him of the habit when he was younger. Smoking had killed it, mostly. But he’s all out of smokes, now.  _

_ “What the hell do you know about what makes a ‘real lady’, huh?” Laney was significantly shorter than him, but in this moment she looked ready to square up and kick his ass. “Go ahead, tell me. What makes a lady real?”  _

_ “Ladies are soft and pleasant and smell like flowers and vanilla—” _

_ “Oh my god, have you ever met a woman at all?”  _

_ Sanji had stammered, “Shut up!”  _

_ “I may not be a ‘lady’, but I sure as hell am a woman.”  _

_ They had lapsed into frustrated silence, staring angrily at each other and at the ground in turn.  _

_ “Do you really think that there’s such a thing as a real lady or a real man?” Laney had asked eventually.  _

_ Sanji thinks of what it means to be a man—what he’s always known to be the marker of a real man. Someone who’s there to protect his family, to protect what’s his. Someone strong. Someone worthy of it. (He thinks of Luffy on that battlefield, thinks of the haunted look in Ivan’s eyes as he had told Sanji the news.)  _

_ “I don’t know. I don’t think I have a right to say anymore.”  _

_ “I was born with a dick. Does that make me any less of a woman?” Laney hadn’t looked at him when she asked.  _

_ “I don’t know,” Sanji had said. After a time, he offered, “I wasn’t there for the people who needed me. Instead, I was here, in a frilly pink dress and panties.” He stares at his own hands. “What does that make me?”  _

_ Laney had shrugged. “Doesn’t make you anything. Maybe it makes you whatever the fuck you wanna be. I don’t know.” She took a deep breath. “I have tits and a dick because I wanted tits and... I know I’m a woman but... I want to keep my dick. What does that make me?” She doesn’t wait for an answer. “I thought that… I don’t know, I would find answers here. Or something. But it’s just another place.”  _

_ Blushing furiously, but curious despite himself, Sanji had asked, “Why do you want to keep it? Your… you know.”  _

_ “Because it’s mine,” Laney said. “And I can’t believe that being a woman stops at having vagina or not.”  _

_ After a moment she spoke again. “Sorry, about what happened to your captain. I was in Impel Down but I stayed out of the fighting at Marineford. I’m not cut out for that sort of thing, I guess. But. I heard about how it went down. And hey, for what it’s worth… the dress doesn’t look awful on you.”  _

_ Sanji had smiled and it was a watery and painful thing. “And for what it’s worth, you make a beautiful lady.”  _

* * *

In the morning, Sanji wakes sweaty and overheated, blinking sleep-crust out of his eyes. His left arm is asleep and his mouth tastes like shit. It’s still early—the sun is barely rising, casting just enough light into the infirmary to see by. 

_ Oh, right. I slept here.  _

Some part of him prays everything was a dream, but as he turns to investigate how sticky and overheated he is, Sanji knows it wasn’t. Somehow, in the night, Luffy migrated to his left side and wedged himself between Sanji and the wall. His head is pillowed on Sanji’s arm, leaving a patch of drool on his shoulder. Luffy’s got one leg thrown over both of Sanji’s and one arm thrown across his chest to fall on Zoro. On his right side, Zoro is sleeping with his back to Sanji and Luffy both. The sight of it makes something ache in Sanji’s chest. He’s a much more graceful sleeper, than Luffy is, laying on his side with both of his arms folded under his head. With every deep inhale, his back brushes against Sanji’s side. The man emanates heat like a furnace. 

Heart rabbiting in his chest, Sanji struggles to sit up quietly without disturbing either of them. Proving his worst nightmares—that the powers of the Share-Share fruit are still impacting them-- Zoro blinks awake between one beat of Sanji’s pounding heart and the next. 

_ Marines?  _ Zoro’s simple, idiot brain wonders audibly, his posture going still and alert. Sanji's frantic, panicked heartbeat must have woken him. 

_ No, idiot. Go the fuck back to sleep,  _ Sanji hisses through their connection, trying to convey as much “I’m-pissed” energy as he can. 

_ You’re the idiot, idiot. It’s just sleeping.  _

And there it is. The crux of why this situation  _ sucks.  _ Sanji doesn’t get to hide  _ anything  _ anymore. Has to make a conscious effort to keep anything private locked down in the deepest recesses of his mind. 

_ I don’t know what the fuck you’re implying,  _ he grits out furiously. 

Zoro fixes his single eye on him, unimpressed.

“ _ Fuck  _ you,” Sanji hisses, tripping the rest of the way out of the bed and slamming the infirmary door as he goes.

* * *

“And you can still hear each other’s thoughts?” Nami asks over breakfast, sipping blearily at her coffee. 

Luffy makes an affirmative noise around the food he’s inhaling.  “Sort of,” Zoro says, reaching across the table like an ill-mannered barbarian for more potatoes. 

_ Ill mannered barbarian,  _ Sanji projects at him.  Zoro glares at him from across the table. 

“What do you mean, ‘sort of’?” Usopp asks. (Luffy takes this as the distraction he needs to steal sausage off of Usopp’s plate.)

Zoro shrugs. “Think of your mind like a house. Usually there’s only one door, right? And it’s for you. Now,” he taps at his head. “It’s like having two neighbors and two more doors. I can leave my own door open or close it. I can open the other two doors, unless they’re held shut.” He sends a not-insignificant glance at Sanji. “I can kind of hear stuff, even when they’re shut. Like… muffled conversation. General feelings, if they’re strong enough.” 

“Wow… that’s… startlingly profound, Zoro.” Nami blinks at him like she’s seeing him for the first time. 

“You forget that Swordsman-san practices the art of meditation, Navigator-san,” Robin says with a smile over the lip of her coffee-cup. “I imagine this is the least burdensome for him.” 

Zoro shrugs.

“Zoro, hey, Zoro,” Luffy kicks at him from under the table. “What am I thinking right now?” 

He gives him a flat, unamused look. “No,” he says, simply. 

Luffy dissolves into laughter. 

“Well, what about any other unexpected side-effects?” Chopper frets. 

Between massive bites of food, Luffy seems to give the question some serious thought before announcing, “Nope!” to which Zoro gives a single, sage nod. 

“And nothing else like the original connection process? No more reliving each other’s experiences? If another traumatic event like that is coming, I’d like to be prepared… Maybe we should talk to Jon-san and Lynn-chan today…” 

“It might be helpful,” Robin comments. 

“Oh!” Luffy blinks. “Yeah! There is the dream thing,” he says. 

“What,” Sanji says. 

“Oh. Yeah,” Zoro replies. 

“ _ What,”  _ Sanji repeats, louder because  _ apparently  _ no one heard him the first time. 

“Dream… thing?” Chopper prompts. 

Luffy nods, his head bobbing comically up and down like a bobble head. “Yeah! Zoro and I saw Sanji’s dream last night while we were sleeping.” 

“ _ What?!”  _ Sanji shouts, barely stopping himself from upending all the dishes he had been collecting. “I didn’t even  _ have  _ any dreams last night—?”

“Huh! Maybe it was a memory then?” Luffy shrugs. “You were in a dress!” 

The table goes dead silent. Zoro is gaping open mouthed at Luffy. Sanji catches the mental exchange between them even over the sound of his own growing panic. 

_ Luffy, what the hell? He obviously didn’t want anyone to know that.  _

_ Why not? That girl in his dream seemed nice enough!  _

A fork Sanji was holding hits the floor and makes a loud, metallic clang as it connects with the wood. Or, at least, it must. Sanji can't hear anything but his own blood rushing through his ears. 

_ Play it off,  _ he urges himself.  _ Say anything, anything at all. Deny it. Just do something— _ but he stays silent, his tongue frozen to the roof of his mouth. 

_ Don’t panic,  _ Zoro says and then— 

“I didn’t see that. Must’ve been just a dream  _ you  _ had, Luffy,” Zoro says. He starts eating again. After a moment, Luffy nods. 

“Yep! Must’ve been! Crazy, huh?” And he tucks back in to the meal, too. 

“... Sanji?” Usopp asks, and  _ oh, great, everyone is still staring at him.  _

So, Sanji does the only reasonable thing he can think to do. He says, “Excuse me for a moment.” and sets down the dishes in the sink. Then, he turns tail, and runs out of the galley and promptly leaps overboard, his knees hitting the sandy beach with a muffled  _ thud.  _

He runs the opposite direction of the town, into the jungle.  As futile as it is to try and outrun this, Sanji has to _try._

Otherwise... 

_ They’re going to know everything.  _


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s so much that could be said. The moment between the three of them stretches on eternally, the silence filling with questions and answers and pleas and promises. "Why did you hide this from us?" they could ask. "Why did you ever think you’d need to hide?" And maybe Sanji would respond, "I couldn’t bear to break what was between you." Or even, "I couldn’t bear to fail to be the man that the Shitty Old Geezer wanted me to be." And maybe, "I was afraid." Perhaps, Zoro or Luffy or even both would respond with gentle reassurances, fervent declarations, and the articulation of painful desires. Maybe Sanji would say, "I don’t want to ruin what you have." Maybe Zoro might reply, "You could never ruin what was already made for you, too." 
> 
> There could be apologies and explanations to dine on for years. 

_ Sanji is friends with Laney now and it’s… weird. Honestly, Sanji is friends with a lot of the Okama now and it’s weird, but Laney is especially weird because she has no filter and lots of opinions about things. _

_ “Red is kinda’ a shit color on you,” she says, her feet knocking gently against the wood of the kitchen cabinets.  _

_ Sanji levels a glare at her. “Thanks,” he grumbles, continuing to stir the soup he’s slaving over.  _

_ “Don’t let Ginger pick your outfits anymore. He’s got garbage taste.”  _

_ “I didn’t have a choice, now, did I?” Sanji growls. He starts to fidget in the red body-con dress, uncomfortable now that he’s been reminded of just what he’s wearing today. The Okama like to make a point about getting him out of his shell… which apparently means getting him into women’s clothing as much as humanly possible. _

_ Laney rolls her eyes at him. “Sanji, you’ve always got a choice.”  _

_ (He knows she’s right. He could outrun any of the Okama—okay, maybe not most, but enough of them—if he chose to, but he’s not and he didn’t and he doesn’t want to look to hard at  _ why  _ that is. What am I choosing? he wonders, standing barefoot in the kitchen in a form-fitting red dress and an apron.) _

_ What am I choosing?  _

_ Fear is heavy like a stone in his chest.  _

* * *

The jungle is humid, but it’s not too unbearable. 

It’s certainly better than the alternative—feeling cramped and trapped with nowhere he can escape on the Sunny. The further he gets from the ship, the quieter his awareness of Zoro and Luffy gets. Even though the terrain is unfamiliar and the air is sticky and heavy, he keeps running, feeling the connection between them stretch and stretch and thin out with each step. 

If he just keeps running, maybe the connection will just snap. Or, maybe if he’s gone long enough, Chopper and Robin will find a way to break the strange spell of the Share-Share fruit altogether. If anyone can do it, it’s certainly them. 

Sanji just has to have faith and keep his distance until then. 

* * *

When the sun is high in the sky and the temperature is truly climbing, Sanji stops to drink some water from a stream and gather some edible fruits and nuts. Every sound makes him jump, thinking that Luffy or Zoro or someone will be lurking just out of sight. 

No one comes. 

(He keeps the doors in his mind firmly shut. Once, he thinks he hears Zoro,  _ “He’ll come back when he’s ready”  _ but he can’t be certain.) 

After a brief rest, he keeps going. 

* * *

By evening, Sanji reaches the other end of the island. The jungle breaks off into a sheer cliff, dropping into the ocean below. With truly no other direction to go than  _ back,  _ Sanji stops here, dropping flat on his back under the shade of a tree. Birds scatter with the noise. 

Like this, he can almost pretend he’s alone in his own head. This far out, the connection feels barely there, like a tune you’ve had stuck in your head for a few days that hasn’t fully left you yet, but is no longer driving you completely batshit, either. 

He lights a cigarette and  _ breathes.  _

His legs burn pleasantly and he thinks he could sleep if he tried, but he doesn’t want to out of fear that Luffy and Zoro will get pulled into his dreams. There’s too much of him that needs to be kept on lock-down. Too many secrets for them to find out. 

It’s bad enough that they’ve learned about Germa—about his siblings and Judge and the Rock from his memories—he doesn’t need them bumping into any more of his weaknesses. 

Zoro, at least, has probably worked out the panic attacks. Sanji isn’t sure that Luffy has a good enough grasp on what they even are—Hell, Sanji himself didn’t even know what they were until Laney had found him shaking in a storage closet and, after talking him down, explained what they were. Zoro, with all his meditation and associated knowledge probably knows. Especially if his initial reaction to touch and comfort Sanji yesterday in the back room of the general store was any indication. 

“Shit,” Sanji mumbles, flicking ash off of the edge of his cigarette.

As much as it pains him to admit, it probably isn’t the worst thing that they saw that awful, stupid mistake of a kiss from his adolescence. It’s embarrassing and fucking horrible, but at least they must have felt his resolution to never allow such a thing to happen again.

He could almost pretend it’s fine if he hadn’t heard what Luffy said at breakfast. 

_ “Sanji was wearing a dress!” _

His hands tighten reflexively at his side.

Is that all they had seen? Was there more?

(How long can Sanji go without sleeping, if needs must? Does it only work if they’re all asleep at once?)

He can claim he was forced into the dress, that might work just fine, as long as they don’t go prodding too deeply into his feelings that day. But if they see anything more, anything past those first terrible few months… 

Sanji’s mouth tastes like bile, suddenly. 

* * *

As hard as he tries not to fall asleep, he must nod off accidentally, because soon he finds himself drifting in a subdued, half-conscious state. He can feel the grass of the jungle under his back, he can hear the crashing of the waves against the cliff-side, but what he can  _ see _ is entirely different. 

There is a warm, calloused hand tucked into his own. Staring down at his hand, he recognizes immediately what eyes he’s seeing out of— _ Luffy’s.  _

Luffy is holding Zoro’s hand. 

Both of them are sitting in the bathroom, and it takes Sanji an embarrassingly long time to realize  _ why.  _ They’re in the  _ bathtub— _ they’re taking a  _ bath, _ the two of them, _together._

Luffy’s (Sanji’s) head lolls weightless onto Zoro’s naked shoulder. Luffy’s (Sanji’s) hand is intertwined with one of Zoro’s. The swordsman’s other hand hangs off the side of the tub. His green hair is dark with water, his head resting back against the wall. His eye is closed. They seem perfectly content in the water together. There are just barely enough bubbles sitting on the surface to hide anything Sanji tells himself that he wouldn’t want to see. 

(Not that he particularly  _ wants  _ to see this, either.)

The air between them is content, but intimate. The silence is heavy, but uncomplicated.

It’s not uncommon for one of the other crew members to help Luffy around the bathroom. Especially in the early days aboard the Merry, back when the ship didn’t have a sophisticated system for filtering and purifying sea-water. One of the men often had to accompany the captain to the bath and make sure the idiot didn’t drown himself accidentally. Now, with Franky’s machines and Usopp’s design-input, they’ve about mastered the ability to allow for the devil fruit users among them to bathe safely. 

This isn’t out of necessity, that much is instantly clear. 

This is… something else entirely. 

“Zoro?” 

“Mm?” 

Sanji finds he’s holding his breath, waiting to hear what’s next, but whatever they say to each other isn’t said out loud. 

(In the periphery of his awareness, a sea bird cries out overhead. The grass beneath his hands is damp and cool in the night air, but the steam in the bathroom is hot and soothing.) 

Moments pass in quiet calm until Luffy (Sanji) shifts slightly to tuck his face more comfortably against the bare flesh of Zoro’s neck. Sanji allows himself to melt into the sensation. Zoro’s skin is warm and smells like a neutral soap. Luffy’s limbs are heavy, but not impossibly so, in the water. The barest hints of headache flirt at the edges of his awareness. 

Slowly, Zoro bends his neck down and Luffy cranes his neck up, eyes catching until— 

Sanji jolts back into his own mind and his own mind  _ only  _ with a startled gasp, clapping a hand over his mouth to stifle whatever sound is trying to fight its way out. 

He had always known the two were close, but never… never  _ like this.  _

_ “Fuck,”  _ he whispers into the dark, voice cracking to pieces around the harsh syllables. 

They can’t ever know. He won’t  _ dare  _ ruin this for them. 

The quiet intimacy, the sheer  _ belonging  _ that Sanji felt so clearly? (The gentle spark as their lips met? The silent conversation between their minds?) No, Sanji can’t fuck this up. 

They can’t  _ ever  _ know that he failed in his promise to himself. 

* * *

(Not only did he fall in love with a man, he fell in love with men that cannot— _ will not— _ ever be his.) 

* * *

When the crew wakes up the next morning, they find that the kitchen is full of sweet, syrup-smelling waffles, fresh whipped-cream, and candied peaches. There is coffee and tea, warm and waiting, and plates piled high with crispy potatoes and rich sausage. Sanji stands amidst the chaos, a conductor in his element. He's in a freshly pressed suit, hiding tired eyes behind smiles and compliments. 

“For my beautiful Robin-chwan,” he croons, tucking a mug of coffee prepared just as she likes between her hands. “And for the ever elegant Nami-swan,” he sighs, coming to meet her at the door to the kitchen.

“Wow, Sanji…” she murmurs, taking in the impressive spread. It’s… a lot, even for Sanji.  _ Especially  _ on a random Wednesday morning. Coffee first, she decides, then she’ll deal with whatever mess Sanji has undoubtedly gotten himself into, but Robin beats her to it. 

“My, my, Cook-san,” Robin says, taking her usual seat at the counter while she waits for the rest of the crew to join them. “I’m happy to see your trip yesterday has left you feeling better.” 

Sanji flinches and hides it terribly. He hopes the ladies don’t catch the subtle shake in his hands or the dark circles under his eyes. (He knows he’s fantastic with the right amount of concealer and some time--but there are limits even to the tricks of the finest drag queens throughout all the seas... and he should know, as he called them his teachers, for a time.) 

“Sanji, are you okay?” Nami braves. 

Before he has time to respond, the door swings open and Luffy comes barreling inside, his eyes wild and crazed. 

“Meat?” he gets out, looking half-awake. As soon as his eyes land on the breakfast spread, he’s gone, leaping for the platter of sausage like a man starved. 

Sanji can feel his own eyes going fond around the edges. 

(He spent all night practicing opening and closing the doors between their minds. He knows how best to keep them shut and how to keep his own inner voice quiet, now. This is not something he can afford to mess up.)

Besides the faint, tickling awareness at the edges of his mind, Sanji’s brain is blessedly silent. 

* * *

Over breakfast, Chopper and Robin relay what they found out from the little girl and her uncle the day before. 

It is not good news.

* * *

_"It's permanent," Robin says, somber. "The affects of the Share-Share fruit last until death."_

The lump of fear in the center of Sanji's chest grows heavier with each breath he takes. But, his resolution grows even stronger. He will _not_ fuck this up for Luffy or Zoro. 

_What am I choosing?_

* * *

“Sanji-san?” Brook approaches him in the kitchen before dinner for his evening tea. For the most part, everyone has left him alone today, seemingly sensing that he needs some time, here. Brook is the first to bridge the tenuous divide. 

“Yes?” 

“Might I say, you’re looking rather tired,” the skeleton says gently. His face is as impassive as ever. Sanji sighs. “Might I suggest, too, that if these newfound circumstances pose a particular challenge to you, that you discuss that challenge with our Captain and Zoro-san? Is it not best to clear the air?” 

Sanji shakes his head. “There’s nothing to talk about,” he tells him. “It’ll just take some adjusting, that’s all.” 

Brook places a bony hand over one of Sanji’s. 

“My dear boy,” he says, sounding every bit his impossible age, “I have lived with far too many regrets to count. Where our nakama are concerned, nothing should stay buried for long. We carry each other’s burdens and for it, are stronger, not weaker.” 

Sanji sighs. “I appreciate that, Brook. But, it’s not like that. It’s fine.” 

(It’s fine.)

_What am I choosing?_

* * *

They sail on, leaving the island behind. Zoro and Luffy go to say goodbye to Lynn and her family before they depart, but Sanji does not. 

* * *

“Sanji…” Chopper trails off, his big eyes sorrowful and anxious. “You really need to cut back.” 

Sanji fidgets, looking anywhere but at the little doctor. He smokes, sure. But in the last few weeks, the habit has gotten much closer to chain-smoking than anything. Chopper has noticed. The situation… is not great. 

Sanji is suddenly reminded of the Shitty Geezer, all towering six-feet of him, catching him with a cigarette for the first time and making him wish he had never had the gall to pick one up. He had been thirteen and stupid, unable to stop the constant, waking anxiety that something was _wrong_ and aching for anything to replace the formless fear inside of him, the incessant dull roar of  _ you don’t deserve this.  _ Chopper looks at him much the same, now. Disappointed. Worried. Angry. 

“You’re doing serious damage to your lungs, at this rate,” he says. After a moment, “Have you talked to Luffy or Zoro?”

That’s all anyone asks him, now.  _ Have you talked to them?  _ Nami catches him napping in the storage room between breakfast and lunch and asks. Brook lingers after dinner, helps him do the dishes, and asks. Franky invites him to his lab to look at his newest inventions and asks. Usopp shuffles around him, nervous and jittery, and says everything except, “have you talked to them?” because Usopp is the only one of his crewmates that knows the meaning of the phrase “healthy fear”. 

Sanji hasn’t opened the connection between them since they left that awful island. 

Meanwhile, Captain and First Mate have never been closer. 

Sanji looks at Chopper and makes a dismissive sound. 

(Chopper goes Heavy-Point and keeps Sanji’s lighte

* * *

r and cigarettes for the rest of the day.)

* * *

They take on a small squadron of marines, boarding their single ship with relative ease. It’s all fine and good until Zoro, the fucking  _ idiot,  _ gets grazed with a bullet and then Luffy decides to put his fist through the hull of the marine ship and sink it with a single punch while the crew is  _ still fighting on the fucking thing.  _

Zoro ends up swimming back to the Sunny with Luffy attached like a lamprey to his back. Chopper has all sorts of questions about how it felt for one of them to be injured while the connection between them was open—to which Luffy shrugs and says, “it stings a little” as if it isn’t any more complicated than that. But his actions are telling, as he sticks a little too close to Zoro’s side the rest of the day, to the Marimo’s obvious annoyance. 

(They must work it out eventually, because Sanji finds them kissing and cuddling in the galley by accident later that night.)

(Sanji pretends that the sight of them doesn’t sting.)

_What am I choosing?_

Sanji catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror before bed that night. He takes in his tired eyes and his sullen look. "I'm choosing the right thing," he murmurs to his reflection before turning out the light. 

* * *

A few weeks after Brook, the lovely Robin-chwan tries her luck. But, as much as Sanji adores her, this is not something that he can let himself share—not something he can divulge. He would give her anything she asked for, except for this. Even so, he would never turn her away, so they end up drinking tea together late into the night, talking about all sorts of things until, abruptly— 

“Sanji-san, do you know the greatest difference between yourself and our Captain and first-mate?” Her eyes twinkle with something dark and knowing. 

Sanji nearly swallows his tongue. There are lots of things that come to mind.  _ I have some semblance of manners. I know how to treat a woman. I’m good at something besides fighting. They have each other and I’m alone. _

_ I was a mistake.  _

“No,” he says, instead. 

Robin hums thoughtfully. “Unlike yourself and I, they do not know what it is to hide.”

Something in Sanji’s chest goes tight. For a breathless moment, he is unsure what it is she means. Has she found out about the Vinsmokes? Or something even more shameful? 

“Sanji-san,” she says. “I don’t say this to frighten you.” Her tone is blunt but there is an undercurrent of sympathy, too. “I say this because I can see how you’re suffering.” Her smile is a little sad. “Maybe there is something to this gift that they have. Hiding is tiring, Sanji. I think, perhaps, there is something to be said for stepping out into the light instead.” 

He doesn’t have the words to respond to her.

When she leave the gallery, he slides his hands into his hair. He grips it till his knuckles turn white and he sinks to the floor, his legs too heavy to help him stand. 

* * *

It all comes to a head after dinner one night. 

After a fantastic meal, if Sanji does say so himself (and he does), as the crew is getting ready to disperse for the night, Luffy rockets up from his seat and barrels right into Sanji for a hug. 

This usually isn’t too uncommon, as Luffy can often get very emotional and enthusiastic about good food. What  _ is  _ uncommon is how such a thing hasn’t happened in the last handful of weeks since the Share-Share fruit. Luffy and Zoro have been giving him space after that day that he took a nice long walk to clear his head- _(ran away like a coward)_ \--which Sanji has really appreciated, in all honesty. It’s been easier to find his bearings with this new reality and draw some lines for himself without constant reminders of Luffy and Zoro’s closeness, of the literal bond that they all share, but that Sanji cannot-- _should not--_ be a part of. 

So, when Luffy jumps up and hugs him tight around the waist, shouting, “Thanks for the meal, Sanji!” it is the first time he’s had any physical contact with the two since the incident. 

It is like a dam bursts at the first electric contact of Luffy’s skin to his own.

* * *

Sanji can  _ feel  _ his own longing pooling undeniable at his feet like blood between them. It comes gushing out of him, flooding into all of the previously silenced spaces where he and Luffy meet.

He registers the painfully tight clenching and unclenching of Luffy’s hands on the fabric of his jacket, the abrupt gasp and shuttering eyes and furious overturning of his most intrusive and most fervently ignored thoughts. 

_ Don’t—Please—  _

_ I didn’t know, I didn’t know, I didn’t know—  _

“Are you two okay?” Nami asks, standing up from the table as if she might be needed to lunge into action at any moment. 

The door bursts open and Zoro comes rushing inside, his single eye wide and alarmed. His look immediately settles on Luffy--clinging to Sanji with a brutal desperation--and Sanji--frozen in horror--and in an instant he’s there, too. Summoned by Luffy’s distress or Sanji’s, Sanji couldn’t say—but either way, Zoro is suddenly there, catching Luffy by the shoulders as the captain finally releases Sanji, stumbling back and away as if burned. 

“What the hell,” Usopp breathes, but it is a peripheral sound. 

Sanji scrambles to pick up the pieces, closing doors where he can and sweeping away the humming chant of  _ inadequate, failure, dead-weight, inadequate, failure, dead-weight,  _ that his brain has got on replay for him  with a sick desperation. He realizes the futility of the task as he makes eye-contact with Luffy. 

Luffy's chest is heaving like he’s run a marathon, his eyes wild and  _ hurt.  _

_ Oh, this is worse than I could have ever imagined,  _ it occurs to Sanji suddenly. The words are flung out into the space between them, ripped from Sanji’s consciousness (or, perhaps his subconscious). Frustrated and reeling, his hands find their way to his hair of no conscious volition. 

“Everyone out,” Luffy commands, his voice steel. 

“Woah, what?” Usopp tries, standing to his feet nervously. 

“Luffy, don’t you think—?” Nami starts, only for Zoro to cut in. 

“He said  _ out.”  _ Zoro’s unwavering gaze leaves no space for argument. 

Baffled and quiet, the two (plus a silent, alarmed Chopper) shuffle their way out of the galley. The door closes with a distinct thud behind them. 

Then, there were three. 

Zoro steps forward, hand catching one of Sanji’s wrists. “Let go,” he says. His voice is gentle but no less commanding than it was a moment before, in front of other members of the crew. 

Luffy is there, concern etched in every line of his face, obvious even if Sanji didn’t have a front-row ticket to the unmitigated stream of his emotions. 

There’s so much that could be said. The moment between the three of them stretches on eternally, the silence filling with questions and answers and pleas and promises.  _ Why did you hide this from us?  _ they could ask.  _ Why did you ever think you’d need to hide?  _ And maybe Sanji would respond,  _ I couldn’t bear to break what was between you.  _ Or even,  _ I couldn’t bear to fail to be the man that the Shitty Old Geezer wanted me to be.  _ And maybe,  _ I was afraid.  _ Perhaps, Zoro or Luffy or even both would respond with gentle reassurances, fervent declarations, and the articulation of painful desires. Maybe Sanji would say,  _ I don’t want to ruin what you have.  _ Maybe Zoro might reply,  _ You could never ruin what was already made for you, too.  _ There could be apologies and explanations to dine on for years. 

Instead, Luffy swoops forward, stealing up Sanji’s lips into a kiss and swallowing all the words that might have come. 

(Those things are in the joining of their lips, anyways. All those questions and answers and pleas and promises and assurances and desires and the apologies come crashing like waves down over Sanji’s battered brain, flowing between their mouths like energy itself.) 

Sanji finds himself leaning forward, drawn to the warmth and the taste and the sun-warm smell of sea-salty skin. A shaky little gasp escapes his mouth and Luffy licks between his lips. 

A hand slides to cradle the back of Sanji’s neck while the other succeeds in drawing his hands out of his hair. 

“That’s it,” Zoro says. His voice is deep and everything sensual in the world as he slides in behind Sanji, caging him between his body and Luffy’s. Gently but forcefully, Zoro guides Sanji’s head with the grip on his neck, tilting him just so and— 

The angle gives Luffy leverage and he takes it with eager hands. His tongue laps deep into Sanji’s mouth, tasting every inch. His hands grab ceaselessly at Sanji’s clothes, tugging at his suit-jacket and shirt in turn, restless and bursting with intent. 

“Sanji,” Luffy pants. He pulls away with a parting kiss on Sanji’s lips and he can hear the declared yet unspoken,  _ my Sanji.  _

_ Our Sanji,  _ Zoro answers without answering. 

Luffy is pulling away and Sanji is reeling with the loss until his hands are guiding Sanji’s face up and back and— 

Zoro’s own mouth slides against his own, taking him in a fierce kiss over his shoulder. 

_ I can feel you feeling me kiss you,  _ Sanji thinks incoherently, toes curling in his shoes at the double-headed emotional onslaught. 

_ Yes,  _ Zoro surges behind him, and Sanji knows with abrupt clarity that Zoro is tasting him like he would any dish the cook makes. 

_ It’s so good like this—never had it like this— _ the realizations come in waves, flowing between them and back. 

_ Isn’t it?  _ Luffy delights, his hands having found their way to Sanji’s ass, just like Sanji wished they would (because Luffy can  _ hear his wishes,  _ now,  _ and isn’t that a thought?)  _

_ Let us show you,  _ Zoro asks-demands-wants-says, tugging at the collar of Sanji’s shirt, loosening his tie with a forceful hand. 

Nervousness shoots like a bolt of lightning through Sanji’s spine when an answering wave of  _ no, you’re perfect. You’re Sanji,  _ beats it back with vicious, overwhelming certainty. 

Suddenly, the need to be horizontal—to really, truly be with them in every way Sanji never thought possible until right now—overrides everything else and he breaks away, stumbling and stuttering to explain with words when he realizes he doesn’t have to. 

_ I’ve been keeping a futon in the pantry,  _ he says without speaking. Luffy and Zoro exchange bewildered, love-struck expressions. 

“Fuck yes,” Zoro  _ growls  _ and  _ oh  _ if that voice doesn’t  _ do things  _ to Sanji. 

Zoro smiles, wicked, knowing exactly what sort of  _ things  _ he does to Sanji. Luffy snickers. 

* * *

They make it, stumbling and tripping over each other in their eagerness to the lockable storage room stocked with barrels of rice and other crates of assorted dry goods. Propped unobtrusively against the wall is a futon which Sanji hastily throws down onto the floor. Luffy is on him like a beast possessed while Zoro locks the door.

The sex is artless. 

The feedback loop between all three of them is so strong that there is barely time for coordination. They are a mess of hasty lips and tightly gripping hands. As soon as Sanji gets a hand around Zoro's dick, Zoro’s pleasure ricochets back onto him and onto Luffy as well. With a gut-punch of a moan, Luffy starts sucking down Sanji’s body in a hot, determined trail. Luffy slides his eager mouth down over Sanji’s cock and Zoro—reeling from the dual sensation of Sanji touching him and feeling Luffy suck off Sanji—comes with a startled gasp. 

From there, their pleasure tumbles into each other until it is one giant avalanche of sensation. Sanji and Luffy come mere moments apart, Luffy’s mouth over Sanji’s cock— _ and oh, god, it’s better than anything ever could have been— _ and Zoro’s hands around Luffy’s own erection, his mouth sucking brutal hickies onto Luffy’s shoulders. His single eye stares deep into Sanji’s own, his voiceless-voice urging,  _ come for us.  _

They collapse together afterwards, their minds moving like waves into each other. Sanji has somehow ended up crushed underneath Luffy while Zoro holds them both, his bare chest pressed to Sanji’s side and his thick arms flung across his waist.

_ They’ve never had to hide.  _ H is conversation with Robin flashes unbidden in his head as he combs idly through Luffy’s hair. 

“You’ll never have to again,” Luffy mumbles. His voice is heavy and sleepy, words smeared with blurry post-coital glow across Sanji’s bare chest. 

Zoro hums. 

And, finally, Sanji lets himself sleep. 

* * *

_ “Sanji?” Laney questions, swooping into the room at the first sounds of distress.  _

_ He’s let his hair grow long (longer than it has ever been) during his time on _ _ Momoiro. Truthfully, he was unprepared for the sight of it--for the truth of it and how it makes him feel.  _

_ He’s hunched over the bathroom sink, scissors in hand, his nearly shoulder-length hair falling like a curtain around his face. With each wordless sob, his shoulders jump.  _

_ “I should cut it,” he whispers, agonized, hands flexing around the scissors and then releasing them again. “Men don’t—” he sucks in a hard breath. Sanji cannot finish the sentence. (Sometimes, even thinking of the Shitty Geezer and his teachings causes guilt to cramp tight in his gut. All the man ever wanted was the best for him and Sanji can’t even follow those simple rules of gentlemanly, manly conduct that meant so much to them both.)  _

_ “Fuck what men do or don’t do, Sanji.” Laney’s small hands press flat against his back. Her eyes meet his in the mirror. “What do you want?”  _

_ As Sanji glances up, he does not recognize who he sees. The person in the mirror is vaguely effeminate, with blonde hair tickling his bare shoulders and thin, curly eyebrows. He’s wearing what is clearly intended to be a woman’s tank-top. His eyes are wet and red. _

_ (God, he’s been crying so much lately.) _

_ He does not recognize who he sees through the tears.  _

_ He is not the failure of Germa—not a weak, lonely little boy anymore. He is not the starving, wide-eyed, helpless kid left to die at sea. He is not the man Zeff tried to help him be. He is not who he thought he was.  _

_ The compulsion to hide is so strong— _ and this is where memory and dream diverge. 

In Sanji’s dream, the reflection shifts and instead of Laney, Luffy and Zoro settle on either side of him. Luffy’s smile is broad and scrunches up his whole face. Zoro’s smile is genuine and it makes his single eye wrinkle with mirth in the corners. 

“Doesn’t matter who you think you should be,” Zoro begins...

And Luffy finishes, “You’re our Sanji, and that’s what matters.” 

Sanji’s reflection smiles, watery, but there. 

Hope grows in his chest. It is no longer solitary but instead, accompanied. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ya'll... i finished it. 
> 
> A few thoughts! First off, thank you so much to everybody that has followed and kudos'ed and commented on this story--I cannot overstate the joy that your enjoyment gives me. 
> 
> I also want to say that I left the details of Sanji's implied queer-identity intentionally vague. Ya'll probably know if you've read any of my other shit that I really strongly headcannon Sanji as nonbinary, and this what I envisioned him struggling with throughout the flashbacks of this story. HoWeVER, I also wanted to leave the details open so that readers could connect in their own way. (Sanji as a character helped me understand my own form of gender-queerness because I resonated with his intensely performative nature, especially surrounding sexuality and gender, and I recognized forms of those gender-roles and attraction-roles that I myself shouldered as I watched this character play them out on screen.) BUT, that being said, I want this story to be accessible from many different avenues of queerness so I felt it would be reductive to explicitly say, "yeah, this bitch nonbinary". Do with this information what you will. 
> 
> Also, I feel weird about throwing Zeff a little shade in Sanji's turmoil, so let me explain. Honestly, I feel like Sanji was probably MEGA fucked up and traumatized coming out of Germa... I think that his vulnerability and trauma probably left him in a uniquely impressionable state when he came to meet Zeff and adopt the man as his father-figure. And, lets be real, Zeff is from an even older age of pirates that's probably steeped in it's own expectations of manhood, and we can see hints of this in Sanji, if not in Zeff himself. THEREFORE, I think that a lot of Sanji's hyper-performative masculinity and sexuality probably came in part from Zeff's beliefs and actions. (Like... ya'll. the man couldn't even tell Sanji to join the Strawhats because it was what Sanji wanted and Zeff wants him to be happy. he had to kick him out. like, hello. please have an adult conversation.)
> 
> LASTLY, another thing I left intentionally vague was the status of Zoro and Luffy's relationship PRIOR to the Share-Share fruit incident. Did you, as a reader, think they were together before it happened? That's valid. Did you assume they got together only after the fact and that that kiss in the bath was their very first? Also valid. You do you. 
> 
> Anyways. Those are my thoughts.

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope this wasn't impossible to read! It was certainly really challenging to write this how I had imagined it... I just hope it was coherent enough to follow
> 
> I'm on [tumblr!](https://trixree.tumblr.com/)


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